Tube reactors are used in many industrial applications. This is especially true in the petrochemical industries. These reactors are often multi-tube reactors where the reactor is composed of a metal shell in which there is an entrance leading to an initial tube sheet, through which many tubes penetrate and are held in place, an exit tube sheet through which the other end of the same tubes penetrate and are held in place. The tubes usually lead into an exit portion of the reactor. In most reactors catalysts are packed into the tubes, and a cooling or heating medium, i.e., gases or liquids, is circulated between the tube sheets around the outside of the tubes to control the temperature inside the tubes, while the reactants are passing through the tubes, over the catalyst.
In most instances the catalyst will lose activity, become inactive or less active, and must be replaced. But first, the spent catalyst in the tubes must be removed and, currently there is no easy process. The usual method involves using a long, flat wire, tape or tube combined with air blasts and/or vacuum and tapping on the tubes. Each tube of the reactor, when often a reactor will have hundreds, maybe thousands of tubes, often in excess of thirty-five feet long, is manually poked with the rod or wire, usually from the bottom, until all of the catalyst has fallen from a tube. Typically, the workman feeds the tape or tube into a tube and continuously tickles the catalyst, repeatedly loosening the catalyst only to have it bridge every few inches or feet below the last stationary point until all of the catalyst has fallen from a tube. Once this is completed for one tube, the workman repeats this process on the next tube until all of the tubes are empty.
It is a slow, tedious process, requiring the workman or workmen to work long hours in a cramped, dusty, often hostile environment.
The present invention is a method of emptying the tubes (of a reactor) and an apparatus for doing same which is faster, requires less manpower and may even be performed without the use of men in the reactor.